


Contractual Obligations

by Carriwitchets



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28323843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carriwitchets/pseuds/Carriwitchets
Summary: The voice felt oddly familiar, too, but Heather had never paid much attention to the men of Ike’s army back then--“Well, would you look at that,” the mysterious cloaked figure said, sounding more amused than anything else. “It would appear I was leading you into a trap after all. Certainly not on purpose, I assure you. This time, at least.”Then the floor fell out beneath them.--Or, in which Heather goes on a treasure hunt and finds an unexpected companion in the form of Naesala, the Raven King.
Relationships: Heather & Naesala (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: Nagamas Gifts





	Contractual Obligations

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Nagamas 2020! This is a gift for [this lovely soul](https://bi-naesala.tumblr.com/), who came up with such a delightful prompt. Heather and Naesala are such a fun duo and were super fun to write, and I hope that this little adventure satisfies!

“Well, well,” Heather said, tapping full lips with a thoughtful finger. “What do we have here?”

She was talking to herself, of course; she’d brought no companions with her on this mission in the south of Crimea. To anyone who’d asked, she’d said it was because she didn’t want to bring anyone along on what could have easily been a wild goose chase. To herself, though, Heather could admit that it was simply that she didn’t want to split the profits, not if she truly managed to find it. She had turned over a new leaf after the war--mostly. Taking care of her mother was top priority, and otherwise she lived a mostly quiet life. Still, when Heather had heard whispers of a well-hidden, near-legendary treasure within her own home country’s border, there was no way she was ever going to miss out on that chance.

How often did one get the chance to try to find real, ancient _treasure_?

Her explorations had taken her to various small towns and even smaller inns throughout the southern half of her homeland, where she’d been able to grasp only wisps of rumor and hearsay about the treasure. While many of the common folk here seemed to know _of_ the treasure, at least in the sense of bedtime stories and fanciful dreams of riches, nobody knew anything about where it concretely was. This, of course, was no surprise; if it was that easy to find it, it would have been plundered long ago, wouldn’t it?

Heather was a patient woman, especially knowing that her mother was being well taken care of back home in her absence. Besides… it had been some time since she’d been able to enjoy the thrill of the chase, the lure of all of that gold just waiting to be obtained. And soon enough, her patient searching bore fruit. It was an old wives’ tale, according to the young man she’d flirted with in the small village. He had looked hopeful by her attention, but Heather’s eyes were drawn instead to his sister, who had smiled at her shyly when they met eyes, before she busily went back to work.

A shame, that. She was a pretty one.

Regardless, the young villager had explained the old wives’ tale to her easily. The entrance to the ruins where the treasure--an ancient golden crown of some sort?--could be found was supposed to only be revealed on one particular day, at one particular time of day, which sounded like complete nonsense to Heather; she’d seen goddesses and phantoms and people turned to stone, but she’d never heard of a door that wouldn’t open at any time of day to a particularly determined set of lockpicks. But it was a valuable clue, and it set her path--she headed towards the deep woods that the young man had pointed out, and began her search.

Which brought her to this old stone door.

She tapped at it cautiously, and heard no hollow ringing in return to imply traps. Squinting at it revealed no keyhole, which was a problem when it came to breaking in, but which also made her think that perhaps this was _actually it_ \--why build a door without an easy way in, if not to house something you didn’t want anyone to be able to reach?

The sun was setting now; Heather tsk’d to herself quietly as the forest started to darken, and then the sun’s light was angled just _so_ , and Heather’s sharp eyes caught the incredibly small indent in the door that she hadn’t been able to see before.

“Aha… so that’s how it is. Old wives’ tale indeed… well.” Heather reached into her coat to pull out her lockpick with a flourish. “Old wives know a lot more than people give them credit for.”

And with that, she got to work. It was but the work of a few moments for someone of her skill level; the stone door opened with the low rumbling of rock on rock, and she slipped in the moment there was enough space for her to do so.

It wasn’t as dark as she’d been expecting, that was the first thing Heather noticed. There were torches lining the wall, lit and propped up haphazardly, and Heather processed that that meant that there had to be someone else here only a moment before she heard footsteps coming her way. Immediately, she looked around frantically. She wasn’t _really_ much of a combatant if she was totally honest, and the last thing she wanted was to be cornered when she wasn’t prepared. But a moment later, her eyes caught a darker shadow that she was sure she could slip into, and sure enough, when she darted her way into the darkness, it proved to be a small dip in the natural stone of the walls, just large enough for her to tuck herself into.

It was not a moment too soon. The men who trampled by looked to her like bad news; they were better dressed than most bandits, but there was a meanness to the many weapons they had on hand that put her on edge.

“Oi, are you sure you heard somethin’ over here?” one of them asked the other, scowling.

The other man hesitated a moment. “I mean, I _thought_ so, but--”

“Ugh, of course, you _thought_ so. C’mon, the others’re gonna leave us behind, and then the bastards will probably take our cut of the treasure.”

That was the last word on the matter; they hustled back down the path, driven entirely by their own greed, and Heather held her breath for a moment, and then two longer, before she carefully stepped out into the open. Cutthroat treasure hunters were bad news. They generally meant business and were none-too-kind at that. Still, she hadn’t come this far just to give up, and they were only dangerous if she was _seen_. Heather was quite good at not getting caught.

Still, for now the only path she could take was the one they’d disappeared down; she followed them at a wary distance, hand hovering over the dagger hidden beneath her cloak. Thankfully, they clearly did not anticipate anyone else being here with them; they were loud as they progressed, and it was child’s play for Heather to follow, spying on them cautiously from a distance.

She counted six of them, six and then another man in the front who she’d yet to get a good glimpse of. Presuming they were all here to get their “cut of the treasure”, that was most likely all of them, so she didn’t have to worry about reinforcements, but still… those were bad odds.

If only that sweet Nephenee was here now. She could’ve handled all of them, Heather would’ve bet on it.

But nothing could be done about that now. She was on her own, and Heather could handle being on her own just fine.

She stalked them down the passageways carefully, mapping the path they took carefully just in case she had to make a hasty escape--with the treasure in hand, of course.

“You sure this is the right way?” one of the men said after some long trudging through the dark. “Yer not leading us into some sorta trap, are you?”

The cloaked man in front, the one who Heather could still not quite make out the face of, replied in a smooth tone that seemed extremely out of place. “Please, your lack of faith wounds me, sir!” There was nothing about the tone that sounded hurt in any way. “Of course this is the right way. I am just as invested in finding this treasure as you all are, I assure you.”

The voice felt oddly familiar, too, but Heather had never paid much attention to the men of Ike’s army back then--

There was an ominous click, and everyone froze. One of the men, somehow even more frozen than the others, slowly looked down at the panel he’d stepped on. Heather couldn’t see it from here, but from the sound alone she could easily imagine what it looked like--a panel of a slightly different texture from the rest of the roughly tiled floor, one that pressed in when he stepped on it, and utterly impossible to easily see in the dark. In other words…

“Well, would you look at that,” the mysterious cloaked figure said, sounding more amused than anything else. “It would appear I was leading you into a trap after all. Certainly not on purpose, I assure you. This time, at least.”

Then the floor fell out beneath them.

Heather reacted immediately, though she couldn’t quite stifle a yelp when there was suddenly nothing but air beneath her heeled boots. A desperate, flailing lunge brought her in range of one of the edges of the cavern wall, and just enough of an indent that her fingers found purchase. From beneath her, in the darkness, there were the panicked yells and shouts of the treasure hunters, before the tell-tale sound of splashes. She grimaced. An underground river, perhaps…? She didn’t want to fall into that, thanks very much.

Still, there was very little in the way of safety that she could reach, and her fingers screamed with the effort of holding up her entire body weight with only the tiny ledge to grasp.

“I’d thought we were being followed,” the far-too-familiar voice said, also far-too-close for comfort, and she looked over her shoulder to see Naesala there, casually dropping the cloak he no longer needed to the water below. She supposed it would only get in the way of his wings anyway, wings that he now was using to hover effortlessly in the air over the darkness as he inspected her with an arched eyebrow.

“Who would have thought it would be a familiar face! It is nice to see you again, H…” He paused for a moment, and then the insincerity of his tone was only compounded with a firm, “Hattie!”

“It’s Heather,” she grunted as she tried and failed to haul herself up. Her fingers were slipping, and there was nowhere for her to go.

“Ah, yes, Heather. That’s right. The one with the sticky fingers,” Naesala said, and Heather got the sense that he’d never really forgotten her name, if he’d noticed her to that extent.

She grimaced as her fingers slipped a bit more, her arms trembling.

Naesala didn’t bother to flutter any closer. “So, are you here for the treasure as well? That is quite enterprising of you to come all this way on your own. Consider me impressed.”

Unlike many of the army, Heather had never really had strong opinions on the Raven King, though she reflected as she slipped just a bit more that she might change that in a hurry at this rate. While he’d betrayed them, it wasn’t as though it was a betrayal that affected her personally; that was more of a higher ups issue. Heather had been there partially for her country and partially to get paid and nothing more, so she didn’t have any cause to really care whether or not Naesala had wronged them or not.

She opened her mouth to respond, trying to shake sweaty hair from her face, but then her fingers finally gave up and she was falling.

There was the flap of a mighty set of wings, and then her hand was snagged in midair. Naesala hovered above her and held her steady, and Heather dragged in a deep breath, and then let it out in an aggravated sigh.

“You could have led with that, you know,” she said, tone peeved, and he just laughed before he flew them properly to safety, setting her down on the other side of the gap in the floor with surprising gentleness. She took a moment to breathe, tying her hair back with a neat twist of her wrist and only then did she look at him seriously.

“All right then. We’re both here, and you’re obviously out for the treasure too. I take it you were just working with those guys because it was convenient?”

Naesala spread his hands at that, a placating gesture that Heather did not believe for a moment. “Now, would I do that? It was a coincidence that they all fell and sadly, alas, could not be saved.”

She propped a hand on her hip and asked frankly, “And it was a coincidence that they can’t collect on their portion of the pay now?”

He grinned at her, and she took that as a yes, shaking her head. The Raven King was a slippery one, probably even more slippery than she was. If she was going to deal with him, she was going to have to be ready for anything. Still…

“Alright, here are my terms,” she said. “We’ll work together to find the treasure, and split the final product sixty-five percent to thirty-five percent. Sixty-five to you. Deal?”

Naesala blinked at her, for a moment looking legitimately disarmed both by her frankness and her offer. “That is awfully generous of you.”

She shrugged. “I have a mother to take care of, and you’ve got a country. Seems fair to me. Do we have a deal or not?”

He started with a protesting, “I do not represent the country of Kilvas any longer, so do not presume--”

She arched a disbelieving eyebrow--what could he possibly be treasure hunting for if not for his people?--and he sighed, waving that off. “Never mind. Fine then, you have a deal. Shall we continue?”

Continuing, it turned out, was easier said than done. They had to progress slowly; the trap the treasure hunters had tripped was only one of many. Thankfully, their particular skill sets leant themselves well to this sort of task: Heather’s sharp eyes and nimble fingers allowed her to spy and disarm most of the traps they came across, while Naesala’s agility and flight capabilities not only allowed them to continue, they got them out of some tight spots at the same time.

Still, by the time Heather disarmed the third arrow trap in their way, she was getting very tired of this place. She snapped the mechanism inside of the wall, stepped back and propped her hands on her hips, blowing a strand of hair that had worked its way free from her ponytail from her face. “Hey, Raven King. Do you know how much deeper this goes?”

Naesala’s response came quickly, clear amusement in his tone. “Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”

She blinked, and then strode to his side to peer around the corner as well. And sure enough, there at the end of one more short hallway was a simple treasure chest. It wasn’t even particularly ornate, and the wood looked like it had rotted with age, but… what else would be in a treasure chest this deep in if not _treasure_? She perked up immediately, and Naesala nodded.

“Yes, I am quite relieved to finish up our search as well, I assure you.” He stepped forward then, stride calm and steady, and Heather had to hurry to catch up, having to take two paces to every stride of his. It was irritating that he was so tall, truth be told, but she didn’t really have the time to tell him so, not when suddenly, that chest was right there in front of them. He paused a few paces away, glanced at her thoughtfully, and then gestured gallantly to her.

“Ladies with clever fingers first,” he said with a grin, and Heather’s heart was of course thoroughly unmoved, though she moved forward even so.

“You’re not my type,” she told him quite frankly, unwilling to stand on ceremony with someone who was counting on her lock picking skills, even if he _was_ a laguz king. He just laughed, though, so it seemed he wasn’t really expecting her to either. It was strange, she thought as she approached the chest. It was odd that she was able to find a strange sort of casual camaraderie with someone who was so very different from her. There were no traps that she could see offhandedly, and so carefully, she pulled out her picks. Laguz, royalty, traitor. And then there was her, simple Heather, a beorc girl from a small village in Crimea who had sticky fingers.

Okay, maybe in some ways, they weren’t so different after all.

She inserted the pick into the lock and found that maybe she didn’t mind this sort of camaraderie after all--even if it did mean her profit margin had decreased substantially. It was for a relatively good cause, though. The raven laguz could likely really use that money.

A few quick twists of her wrist, a deft touch and the lock was no longer an obstacle, and then all there was left to do was to open the chest. And it was in that moment, even after all of her caution thus far, that Heather’s eagerness got the better of her. She flipped open the lid without the care it likely deserved. There was another click, loud in the sudden silence.

From behind her, a still-safe distance away, Naesala whistled. “Ah, so it was still trapped. It is pretty amazing that a trap like that could survive so long, don’t you think?”

Heather knew it was far too late to get out of range when she was already so close and had already tripped the trap, and knew as well that she only had a few moments in which to do anything. So she shot Naesala a glare over her shoulder, and then the sleep magic settled over her and she collapsed to the ground in front of the chest.

“It’s nothing personal,” she heard him say, blackness looming around the corners of her vision. “And you have to admit that you made yourself terribly convenient.”

Heather fought to speak around a mouth that felt as though it was filled with cotton, and managed one last, irritated, “I really hate men like you, you know.”

And then she was plunged into the depths of a deeply magical sleep, and that was that.

* * *

Heather woke in the village nearest to the woods she’d been exploring, eyes fluttering open and finding, to her surprise, ceiling above her. An explanation came quickly; apparently, she’d “collapsed” in the woods, and a kind, cloaked man had asked the couple who owned this house to look after her until she woke up. They looked puzzled when she pressed a hand to her forehead, fighting off a headache that was less the lingering effects of magic and more the lingering effects of Naesala’s company. But nonetheless, she thanked them politely for looking after her, and then set her sights on the way home.

Naturally, there would be nothing back in those ruins. Naesala wasn’t the sort to make trivial mistakes, and after using her as bait for that trap, it’d be easy for him to fetch the treasure. Really, Heather thought ruefully to herself, she should probably have just been glad that he didn’t leave her there to fend for herself. But then… he wasn’t that sort of person, was he? And annoyed as she was, it was more at herself for falling for such an obvious trap, rather than him for taking advantage of it.

She’d have done the same in his shoes, after all.

Still, it was a long trek home when she was empty-handed; Heather spent most of the trip flirting outrageously with any cute village girl she could spend time with, indulging in the best meals she could find, and trying hard to not think about how much she’d have to steal to make up for how much time she’d wasted on this trip. She dawdled long enough that by the time she returned home, slapping on a bright smile to greet her mother with, someone else had already beaten her to it.

“There’s a letter for you, dear,” Heather’s mother said, holding out both the letter and its attached package, which Heather took with a bemused blink. There was only her name written in an easy scrawl, and with a bit of a shrug, Heather opened it up.

_To my treasure hunter companion:_

_As per the terms of our deal, here is your share of the treasure, which I have had appraised and sold to the highest bidder. Your assistance was quite useful in the end._

There was no signature, and Heather did not need the black feather that was included in the parcel to know who it was from. Still, she picked it up, twirling it in her fingers idly as she peeked into the package--which she nearly dropped from shock at the sheer amount of gold inside. She caught it, of course; it was far too valuable a package to drop. But even so, for a long moment, all she could do was stare at it, doing mental calculations in her head. It was true that the treasure would undoubtedly fetch a high price, but… to receive _this_ much, Naesala had to have truly done an amazing job with his haggling, or… he gave her a larger cut than she’d first offered.

Heather looked at the feather in her hand, lips twitching in vague amusement.

“I still hate men like you,” she informed it. “But I guess at the same time, you’re not so bad. As a treasure hunting companion, that is.”

It was a feather, so of course it did not respond, and almost casually, Heather tucked it into her hair on a whim. With that done, she moved to stash the gold away someplace safe, humming as she went, in a _much_ more cheerful mood now than when she’d first arrived.

* * *

(Much, much later, when the rumor crossed her path of another treasure lurking in the mountain range to the south of Daein, Heather put a hand to her chin thoughtfully for a moment, before she reached for a quill and a piece of parchment.

She knew just the person to invite along, this time.)


End file.
